


Best Served at Muzzle Velocity

by thekumquat



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Mentions of graphic death, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, thresher maws are terrifying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 09:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16762861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekumquat/pseuds/thekumquat
Summary: It's hard to run from your demons when they pop up on every other world you explore. It's better to turn and face them, head on and with heavy ordinance.





	Best Served at Muzzle Velocity

She has dreams about Akuze, still. Seven years has not been long enough. Sometimes she is in the thick of it, scrambling to keep her footing as the ground rolls beneath her, the smell of acid sharp in her throat, the screams of her friends mixing with the shrieks of the maws. Sometimes she is standing on a hill, watching, unable to move. In those dreams, sometimes she can scream and sometimes she can’t, but every time she is frozen in place. Helpless. Frightened. Watching. 

When they track Kahoku’s team to Edolus, she can feel the nightmare forming. It lurks in the back of her skull, rolling in the shadows as she gazes at the twisted, half-melted corpses. That night, when it unfurls behind her eyelids, the bodies of the marines crawl towards her, flesh-seared jaws clacking soundlessly as they demand  _ why not you?  _

That is not the only time they see a thresher maw, and that is not the only time she has that dream. 

  
  
  


Two years later, the nightmare comes to life. Her fingertips go numb when the ground beneath them begins to shake. A distant, floating part of herself is incensed; klixen and varren are one thing, no one said a word about a  _ thresher maw _ . 

She can already hear the screaming. She dives to one side as the acid hits the concrete beside her, sizzling and spitting.  _ Survive _ , the shaman said. Five minutes. Surely she can relive hell on earth for five minutes. For Grunt, she can do it. 

The thresher maw doesn’t sit still. It circles the stage they’re on, making those terrible noises, looking for any sort of opening. Shepard can tell Grunt is getting agitated. Is he afraid and trying not to show it? Or does he hate hiding? Jack doesn’t look scared, but she’s hard to read. All Shepard can see is the grim, laser focus Jack always shows when a fight goes south. 

Shepard longs for the protection of the Mako. It won’t make the nightmares any better, but at least she’d know she’ll live to have them. 

The maw dives. She can feel it beneath them, the hard-packed earth providing no more resistance than the air. Shepard’s eyes follow the trail of dust the maw’s movements kick up, braced to run the moment it surfaces.  Then the movement stops. The earth goes still. Shepard strains to listen, but all she can hear is the sound of her own breathing, harsh and fast, echoing in her helmet. The silence lasts too long. Shepard becomes aware of her body, the painful pound of her heart against her ribs, the trembling in her arms and legs. 

The thresher maw bursts free, showering them in rubble and dirt. Panicking, moving entirely on instinct, Shepard fires. It hits. The thresher maw reels backwards, screeching furiously, but Shepard barely hears it. 

She killed thresher maws in the Mako all the time. But now she is on foot. She is on open ground with a squad at her back and she shot it. She hurt it. 

_ She made it bleed.  _

Grunt roars in delight, instantly opening fire. Jack shouts, half-laughing and half-disbelieving, “are you  _ serious _ ?” 

It is every nightmare she has had in the last seven years come to life, but this time she isn’t bound by invisible chains or reliving the motions of a soldier too confused and afraid to know what to do. 

This time, she is Commander  _ fucking  _ Shepard. 

Fighting is harder than hiding, but she is not afraid. She is not angry. She is  _ flying _ , feet lighter than air, hands steady and mind clear. She never got to take out the nest on Akuze, but now retribution is sweet on her tongue. 

The three of them are in perfect sync. Jack harries the worm with biotic strikes while Shepard and Grunt aim for the soft spots between the plating of its armor. When it dives down, they take the moment to catch their breath, but they are always ready when it rises again. 

Only a minute left, and Shepard knows they have it. The maw is bleeding from a dozen places; its movements are sluggish and erratic. 

It dives towards her. So familiar, that gaping mouth, the hanging blue tongue, the rings of teeth, but this time she doesn’t throw herself to the ground or scream or pray. This time she raises the grenade launcher and fires. She’s a good shot, and the grenade goes straight down its throat. 

It gives one last, furious scream that rattles through Shepard’s bones, and the grenade goes off. The thresher maw jerks and collapses, hitting the ground hard enough to make it shake. 

Shepard is on Akuze, and this time her squad is cheering. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
